Istanbulmarch getaway

Day 1

Night walk

The first day in Istanbul started late in the evening with the thought "Oh-oh-oh, I'd rather be going for a walk to see it all before darkness falls!"

It happened to be pretty cold

Blue Mosque

For some reason, I thought that Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia are the same structure. But when I arrived, it turned out that those two are entirely different architectures. Nevertheless, they are next to each other, in the same square.

Deluxe Golden Horn Sultanahmet Hotel

The hotel where I lived has a name very similar to another one, a couple of blocks up the street. I had difficulties planning my itineraries because my smartphone built routes from the other hotel, not mine. Name your hotels uniquely!

Day 2

Jellyfish in the Bosphorus

The next morning I decided to see the Asian part of Istanbul. I decided to take a ferry across the Bosphorus, from Europe to Asia.

Ferries are mundane here: they're like bus or minibus in other cities. Moreover, you can pay with a regular travel card, which is suitable for paying for any transport, whether it is a subway, a bus, a tram, or a ferry.

Bosphorus bridge

Northern part of the city

The Galata Tower is the most notable landmark in the namesake district of Istanbul

Dolmabahce Palace - the residence of the Ottoman Sultans until their abolishing

Bernoulli equation on the wall of a waterfront building

Maiden tower on a small island - the symbol of the Asian district of Üsküdar.

One of the many mosques

Üskudar

At the exit from the ferry, bazaar awaits. The usual one, or perhaps, unusual. It has flowers, merchants and many different goods for tourists.

Beachfront Park

There is a straight road from the ferry terminal that goes along the coast to the Bosphorus Bridge. On the left side, there is enough space for exactly one row of houses. It looks fascinating, a row of houses, and the sea as their backyards. Some even have their private pier. These houses alternate with parks and restaurants; the latter ones have access straight to the beach.

A boat garage

The gulls in Istanbul are pervasive. They are of every size and color. Further, they are everywhere: near fountains, on the shore, begging travelers for food. They are local pigeons. Or sparrows, gigantic sparrows.

The schooner and her pirate crew.

While the owner of this marvel is sitting in a cafe for a cup of coffee...

I and the bridge between the two parts of the world

Galatasaray

Galata Tower looks a lot grander from a distance than surrounded by tourists

I still do not understand why there were so many flags around. Maybe it was a holiday or, perhaps, an election.

I can imagine what it takes to "go shopping" with this terrain

That bandit is asleep at the entrance to a bank. The bank is open, and everyone tries to leak into the hardly open door, so as not to meddle with the highwayman.

The queue to rescue Rapunzel

Sultanahmet Square

Hagia Sophia

Blue Mosque

German Fountain, a gift to the sultan from the Kaiser, when they were friends to conquer the whole world. Well, they both ended with revolutions.

Snake Column. Recently, about three hundred years ago, the column had snake heads, but since then they fell away and got lost. End of story.

Egyptian obelisk, the first one of the two.

And this is the second

I believe the fashion to steal obelisks from Egypt is spread all over the world. Any city that has self-respect should possess an obelisk that was stolen from Egypt. Well, at least one reclaimed from another town.

Snake column. These three meters in depth - they're not really in depth. The column was erected on the land surface, and then, for two thousand years, the dust was settling around, and people trampled it, and now it's three meters deep into the ground.

Basilica Cistern

I could not see Basilica Cistern in all its glory because half of it is closed for restoration, and the other half is open, but there is no water in it since some repairs are under way.

Presumably, the workers collect demons' guts after filming "Inferno."

The heads of Medusas are flipped over so that the beholder was not afraid to turn into stone.

Night scenes

Day 3

Blue Mosque

Doors, doors are everywhere.

Apparently, when many people want to pray, they are open

Ablution fountain

A tree in the mosque garden

Minarets

A tree almost entirely covered with ivy

And that is the way those doors look from outside.

The central entrance to the mosque's yard

Throughout the city, there is a significant number of stray dogs, each has a tag in the ear, just like grass fed organic farm cows. Those badges look like radio tags. Naturally, all the dogs are sterilized, and thus behaving like bigwigs - unhurried, dozing off here and there, and enjoying their dog life.

And here you can see the trunk of that tree and the trunks of that ivy

These are ablution fountains outside the mosque, just near the entrance. Tourists, fortunately, are not obliged to wash their feet, only to take off their shoes.

Hagia Sophia

Tile patterns

At the entrance

Half of the cathedral is under restoration; it seems that it lasts for many years.

People constantly come up to this Eye-Hole, poke their thumbs inside and twists the hand around in a circular motion. It looks like some ritual, the local version of "grab Juliet's left boobie for love and felicity."

The reddish stone is the purple porphyry, the stone of Byzantine emperors.

That is what remains of the fresco. At the bottom right - what it looked like when it was intact.

When the Vikings took Constantinople, they scrawled their "Olaf was here" wherever they could. Now, these writings are under glass, being a historical value.

The old art hides under the new layers of plaster

Porphyry column

I'm going down from the second floor to the first one. It is tough to call it the stairs, but the process is quite exciting.

Here, too, you can see where the earth surface was two thousand years ago

Topkapi Palace Complex

The Sultans lived here since the conquest of Constantinople and until they moved to the new Dolmabahce Palace